(CNN) – A tourist was expelled from Venice after she was caught posing for topless photos at a war memorial.
The 30-year-old Czech woman undressed last Friday afternoon and threw her belongings at the monument, which pays tribute to Italy’s war heroes, as she went to bathe in the icy lagoon and then stretched out. next to the statue. of a murdered partisan woman to pose for photos.
She was deported from Venice for 48 hours and fined $ 513.
The local Mario Nason was walking with his son when he saw the woman and her two companions at the monument, which is located by the sea.
“It was a beautiful day and we saw two people taking pictures. I saw a strange movement and then I saw this woman swimming without caring about the world,” Nason told CNN.
“I thought I must be crazy, thinking I could swim on an ice day.
“But then I saw him trying to get out of the water by climbing on the statue, wearing only his bikini pants.
“She got up, then went back into the water, completely relaxed.
“Her boyfriend and another woman had jumped over the barrier and were at the monument, to take better pictures of her. They were there next to the clothes she had left. [on the monument]as you do on the beach “.
The woman, whose name has not been named, was arrested by police. She was fined € 350 ($ 400) and beaten with an anti-social behavior order, including a 48-hour city ban, which includes a $ 100 ($ 113) fine.
The woman bathed in the icy water before getting topless for photos at the war memorial. CNN has blurred parts of this image to protect the identities of the people in the photo.
courtesy of Matteo Nason
“It simply came to our notice then [the tourists] they wondered, “How is that a problem?” They had no idea what they were doing, “Nason said.
“It’s like going to Rome, jumping into the Trevi Fountain and then saying, ‘What do you mean, you can’t do that?’
“You can say, they didn’t kill anyone. But when I travel, if I see a fountain, I don’t feel like jumping in. If I’m in Paris, walking on the Seine, I won’t throw myself into the river. If I go to Prague, “If I threw my clothes on a monument and went to bathe, wouldn’t that happen? It’s common sense. Why do people do these things in Venice that they wouldn’t do anywhere else?”
The tourist went for a swim in the lagoon, before lying down next to the statue of the murdered supporter, posing for the photos.
Giacomo Cosua / NurPhoto via Getty Images
A local police spokesman told CNN that according to his report, the woman was lying on the monument, imitating the dead supporter for a photo.
“She wanted the statue shot,” they said. “I guess he apologized.”
The bad behavior of tourists in Venice is nothing new. Just a week earlier, a man undressed and plunged into the Grand Canal; he was never caught.
Others have been fined and forced out of town for violating decorating rules. Last summer, a Scottish tourist was expelled for diving from the Academy Bridge on the Grand Canal after a night of drinking. And in 2019, a German couple was kicked out for coffee on a camping stove under the Rialto Bridge.
“Sitting in St. Mark’s Square with a slice of pizza, or making coffee, is a wonderful thing to put on Facebook, but if 30 million tourists behave like that, Venice becomes a beach or a campsite,” Nason said.
“This goes beyond the personal discomfort of sensitivity around the partisan monument. They probably didn’t know that the statue of the woman lying there was a dead partisan. But she treats Venice like a beach.
“Just because you feel like doing something doesn’t mean you have to do it.”
